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“My wallet and knife.”
I nodded.
“What were you looking for?”
“A flash drive.” My shoulders lifted in a quick jerk. “I never found one.”
“I don’t have one.”
A breath of a laugh kissed my lips. “I noticed.”
“Did Mickey say what was on it?” Beck asked.
“No, just that it was important to get back. When I didn’t find anything, he believed you’d given it to Demitri Borello. He told me the bones of the betrayal, made it seem like Kieran was the one behind it.”
Both Beck and Kieran hissed curses.
“I didn’t tell him I already knew the entire story. That I already knew what really happened with you, Beck, and Dare. He told me to get as close to you as necessary until I gained your trust and found out where the flash drive was. I was supposed to tell him if you had any sort of contact with the Borellos. He was sure you were either still working with them, or going to shut them up so no one could talk about your involvement. And then I found out Dare was on your kill list.”
Beck sounded like he was choking, but Kieran was talking, his tone soft and grave. “Everything at The Jack was because of Mickey?” he asked. “Not Lily? Not us?”
I glanced at him, hoping he’d understand. “It was both.”
A breath punched from his chest.
“It was.” I leaned forward in my seat, silently pleading with him. “Mickey was going to kill Conor and then you if he found out what you were doing, so I knew I needed to get Dare off your list. But things had already shifted between us, and then that first night . . . it was over. I was already falling for you. Everything I said was true.”
“Fuck, Jessica.” He ran his hands through his hair and dropped his head to stare at the floor.
“I meant every word,” I continued. “That second night before we even got inside, I saw Mickey’s driver parked outside The Jack, watching us. If he’d gone inside . . . if he’d figured it out . . .” I shrugged helplessly. “I had to get you to drop Dare.”
Kieran hadn’t moved from his place. His fingers were laced behind his neck as he looked down. His breaths were so shallow, and I kept waiting for them to stop altogether.
“Everything was real. You know it was.”
“You were told to love me,” he said with a sad laugh.
My stomach fell. “No. Kieran, no.”
“Funny how that comes back around.”
I was out of the chair and in front of him, my hands curling around his face to make him look at me. “I was made for you.”
He unlocked his fingers to grip my wrists, his blank stare searching mine. “I know that. But after hearing all this . . . it’s hard to believe you can really know that.”
“Kieran.”
“Trust me, I know how hard it is to differentiate real and forced love.”
My head fell to his chest as panic clawed at me. After tasting the sweetest relief of our second chance, the possibility of losing him now left ice in my veins.
“The monster inside you wouldn’t protect me if it wasn’t real,” I whispered. “Couldn’t.”
His gentle squeeze on my wrists was his only response.
“As fun as this is for me,” Beck mumbled, “there was never a flash drive.”
Kieran cleared his throat and straightened, forcing my hands to my sides but not releasing them. “He’s right.”
